Chapter Seventeen: Astonishing Talent
The next morning, Ash and the other Pokémon were very excited to meet Misdreavus and see Delphox's new looks.
"Wow, looking good, Delphox!" Ash said, and Delphox smiled in return.
"And it's nice to meet you, Misdreavus," he went on, looking at Misdreavus now.
Misdreavus said something to him and Ash grinned.
"I don't scare easily, but you can try it," he said.
Not for the first time, Serena wished she was as good at understanding new Pokémon as Ash was, but she'd probably learn to understand Misdreavus quickly enough. By this point, she was already getting fairly proficient at understanding Charizard and Sceptile, at least, and she hadn't even spoken to them all that much since the start of the journey, and Misdreavus would be performing in the Exposition, meaning that Serena would be spending a lot of time with her.
("So can you move through walls and stuff?") Pancham asked, and Misdreavus demonstrated by floating through the ground and some rocks without any issues.
("That is so cool!") Pancham said. He looked at Serena. ("You have to let me perform with her! It'll be so awesome!")
Serena giggled at his enthusiasm. "I'm glad you're so eager," she said. "Now that there are four of you, we'll need to decide on who gets to participate in the Exposition anyway, since only three of you are allowed to enter. Misdreavus is definitely in, because that's why she came with us at all, and I really want to use Delphox too because she just evolved, so there's one spot left…"
("Yes, me!") Pancham said, hopping up and down impatiently. Misdreavus giggled at his antics.
("Pancham can do it,") Sylveon said with a smile. ("I got to perform two times last time, so I'll just watch.")
("Yes! You're the best, Sylveon!") Pancham said.
"Thank you, Sylveon," Serena said with a smile. "Well, in that case it's decided. The Location Round will be Misdreavus, Delphox, and Pancham. We'll decide who gets to do each Showoff Round when we get there."
She looked at Misdreavus and said, "Which moves do you know? That way we can come up with a good performance."
Since it would be some time yet before Serena would be able to understand Misdreavus, Delphox translated for the time being.
("She used Confuse Ray on you last night to scare you, Psybeam and Hex in her fight with me, and she also knows Shadow Ball,") Delphox said.
Serena nodded. "Right. Those are some pretty good moves for an Exposition. I don't think you're allowed to use Confuse Ray on the audience, but we might be able to come up with a different way to use it if you can change how you use it."
Misdreavus looked at her questioningly and Serena explained, "For instance, Pancham is really good at controlling his Stone Edge into different shapes and sizes, Delphox can move the orbs of her Hidden Power however she wants, including fusing them together, and Sylveon can do a lot with Fairy Wind, like making herself or others float, or just creating really pretty glitter effects. The better you can control the moves you know, the more you'll be able to do with them."
Misdreavus nodded and asked Pancham something.
("Yeah, sure, try it!") he said.
Misdreavus's irises glowed bright red, and even though Serena knew Misdreavus was on her team now, it still looked pretty scary. An evil-looking glow appeared around Pancham and he floated up into the air a bit before Misdreavus put him back down again.
"That was Hex, right?" Serena asked, and Misdreavus nodded. "Okay, so you've got pretty good control over it already, then, because it's really different from last night. Can you do other things with it?"
("She says she can, but that she'll need to practice it more and that she usually relies on Confuse Ray because it's much easier to make people and Pokémon think they're seeing something than actually doing it,") Delphox translated.
"That's okay," Serena said. "We'll need to practice for our performance, anyway, so until we reach the town we can just work on increasing your control over your moves in general. The others will be happy to help you out."
Misdreavus nodded happily, and Serena was glad she seemed to be satisfied with her decision to join the team, at least for the moment.
She looked over at Ash and said, "So, Ash, have you already decided who you'll use? You were going to enter the Exposition too, right?"
Ash nodded. "I am," he said, "but I don't know who I'm going to use just yet. Pikachu, for sure, but beyond that…I'd like to use Hawlucha since he loves to perform, but his moves are really mostly meant for battling and it would be difficult to come up with something that really symbolizes Lavender Town with the moves he has, so…I'm still thinking. I've still got plenty of time, though. It'll be a few more days before we reach town, and then some more before the Exposition actually starts, so we'll come up with something, count on it."
Soon after breakfast, they got moving again, and while the terrain was still just as eerie as it had been before, Serena felt a lot better walking through it now than she'd done earlier, possibly because she was excited about trying an Exposition with a new Pokémon for the first time since she'd gotten Sylveon, back when Sylveon was still an Eevee. Having a Ghost-type to compete in a town so connected to death would probably be a great help, and Delphox's mystical-looking new form would surely do well too.
But how would she best be able to give Misdreavus what she wanted, which was a chance to scare people? She'd made the promise on a whim and she was sure that it was possible to make it true, but if Misdreavus really mostly relied on her Confuse Ray to make people see and hear things, it was going to be very difficult for her to get the entire audience swept up in it. Hex had the potential to be versatile, and Psybeam and Shadow Ball always looked good, but how to use them? And though she'd readily granted Pancham's request to be in the performance because Sylveon was so willing to step back, Sylveon's Fairy Wind would probably have been a great boost to the atmosphere of the entire piece, which Pancham wouldn't be able to easily replicate even with his control over his Dark Pulse.
Well, to start with it would probably be a good thing to let Misdreavus and the other Pokémon get more used to each other, so when they stopped for lunch sat down with her Pokémon and said, "Okay, you four. When you're done eating, we're going to train for a bit. We'll just do some Showoff training so you can all work on using your moves into each other's. Misdreavus, for you it's important to know that you can't actually use your moves to hit any of the others here. You can attack their moves, but not them, okay?"
("She wants to know if she can still distract us from using our own moves,") Delphox said when Misdreavus asked something.
Serena nodded. "You can. In fact, that's pretty much the goal: to distract the other Pokémon while showing off good-looking routines yourself."
Misdreavus's eyes lit up and she quickly finished her food, using the strands of her 'hair' as hands to grab it. Then she grabbed Pancham in the same way and pulled him along with her to a spot just a bit away from the table.
("She seems to like him,") Delphox said.
"Probably because he thinks she's cool," Serena said. "I mean, she did say people and Pokémon usually don't like her."
("Well, given what her idea of fun is I can't blame them,") Delphox said. ("Though I suppose Pancham used to be a thief, so I guess people didn't really like him either, before he joined you.")
Serena, Delphox, and Sylveon followed Misdreavus and Pancham and Serena said, "Okay, you two, show me what you have, then."
Misdreavus excitedly said something to Pancham, who nodded and replied, ("Alright, here I go, then!")
He hit the ground and launched himself upward with a Stone Edge, and in response Misdreavus simply floated into the pillar, which exploded into dust a moment later after a dark purple flash emanated from within it.
Pancham landed and wanted to go for a backflip, but Misdreavus appeared out of the ground in front of him, shrieking with her eyes and necklace glowing, and her hair flared out wide.
Pancham clearly hadn't been expecting her to emerge from there, of all places, and he messed up his flip, landing flat on his back but turning it into a roll instead.
Misdreavus, though, had already vanished into the ground again and appeared some distance away, firing a Psybeam that barely missed Pancham, before bending in midair and shooting back past him in the other direction.
Pancham grinned widely and fired a Dark Pulse into the oncoming Psybeam, causing an explosion that momentarily obscured Serena's vision of the action, but she quickly caught sight of Pancham again as he simply raised a ring of Stone Edge pillars on which to continue his acrobatics.
Every time he'd jumped from one pillar to another one, though, Misdreavus blew up the pillar he'd been standing on, and instead of letting the dust dissipate, she kept it in the place it had been, surrounded by the same eerie glow that had been around Pancham when she'd made him levitate earlier.
All in all, the effect made it look like she'd turned Pancham's Stone Edge into a ghost of itself, and when Pancham tried to land on one of the ghost pillars, he slowly sank through it as Misdreavus allowed him to softly get back to the ground, where she finally allowed the attack to dissipate, before rising out of the ground to startle Pancham one final time.
Then she giggled and proudly looked at the astonished Pancham, though she did look tired.
("That…was awesome!") he said after taking a moment to recompose himself. ("You blew my pillars up from the inside!")
Misdreavus nodded, smiling widely, and then excitedly chattered something to Pancham, who eagerly talked along with her.
("She says she's done things like that only a few times before and that it's really tiring, but that she thought Pancham would like it,") Delphox said.
Serena smiled. "He wasn't the only one who liked it. That was great, Misdreavus! I didn't know you were so good with your moves already."
("She says she knows how to scare and startle people, so this wasn't all that different to her, and that she prefers this over actually fighting anyway,") Delphox said.
"Well, then I'm sure you'll love Expositions, because they're all like that. The Location Round is a bit different, but the Showoff Round is like this all the time."
("So she can win by scaring the other Pokémon?") Delphox translated.
"Yes, you can," Serena confirmed.
She didn't need any translation to know Misdreavus was happy with that answer, and despite being a literal ghost, Misdreavus looked absolutely adorable with the way she smiled.
And seeing this little demonstration, Serena realized she'd be able to do some fairly unique things with Misdreavus's ability to phase through solid matter as if it wasn't even there. Blowing up Pancham's Stone Edge from within with Shadow Ball wasn't just something that looked great, it would also be fairly hard for an opponent to stop Misdreavus from using the attack if she fired it from within another move, which gave options for some great performances.
Of course, opponents would probably catch on to her sudden appearances and disappearances, but if they were all rolled into a cohesive show, that didn't necessarily matter.
Still, it was clear that Misdreavus would be a great addition to the rotation once they'd made it to the Showoff Round. Now all that was left was to come up with a good performance in the Location Round, and hopefully with that, Serena would finally win that elusive gold medal.
Bit of a short one today, though in all honesty this kind of length was what I envisioned most chapters in this story to be, and I'm sure it'll be the first of many. That said, I don't think I'll be able to upload tomorrow since I've got a busy day, but I expect to be back on Friday. I definitely have plenty of ideas for the next couple of chapters, anyway, and I want to keep this story going since I'm having a lot of fun writing it. I suppose the chapter title is a bit ironic since Misdreavus doesn't actually know the move Astonish, but whatever, we'll roll with it. Oh, and Serena will probably be able to understand Misdreavus soon, as that's simply easier to write. Trainers understanding Pokémon isn't canon anyway, so I'm really not going to sweat the details about it. If I handwave it at all it'll be a miracle, frankly.